Go green with help from the library—April 25, 2008
Go Big Green! Not quite the color one associates with Nebraska, but it is the color of Hastings, the Green City. As Kermit would say “It’s not easy being green.” The library has a few books to help you.
You would expect to find ways to incorporate environmental friendly methods or materials into your home in a book entitled “Building Green.” Authors Clarke Snell and Tim Callahan take you beyond things like utilizing solar in your building. They focus on the concept of sustainability by incorporating five basic traits – low construction impact, resource efficiency, long lasting, non toxic and beautiful.
“Green Living for Dummies” is packed with practical advice and tips on how to minimize your impact on the world – everything from creating a more eco-friendly house to recycling, gardening, shopping and travel.
“Wake Up and Smell the Planet” takes you through your day in an ecological manner, covering everything from your morning coffee to walking the dog. This small book provides lots of food for thought on ways to cut down, cut out and rethink your consumption.
Energy is becoming more costly to produce and those costs are passed on to the consumer. Check out the tips for conserving energy in “Energy: Use Less, Save More.”
Many of the smells and products that we usually associate with “clean” are very harmful to the environment. Deirdre Imus suggests alternatives in “Green this! Greening Your Cleaning.”
“Natural Cleaning for Your Home” and “Clean Naturally” contain many recipes for making your own products.
Being a gardener, compost is very near and dear to my heart. It’s amazing to see how the buckets of kitchen garbage – potato peels, coffee grounds, apple cores, and other parts of fruits and vegetables – magically turn into crumbly, black humus that the little seedlings and the perennials love. Check out the library’s several composting books for the why’s and how’s.
One of the most basic ways that you can conserve the earth’s resources is to utilize the books, magazines, DVDs, and other materials at the library rather than buy your own copy. Another alternative is to share your copy with a friend or neighbor or donate to the library to reuse or recycle.
Make every day an earth day – learn to live greener!